On Saturday, I walked out of the basement internet cafe near my apartment and looked down the corridor to the street outside. I immediately had the sense that something was deeply wrong with the view in front of me, but it took me the entire walk to the door to figure out what it was. Finally I figured it out.

“It’s raining,” I said to a boy who was standing by the door.

“Duh,” the look he gave me replied.

I started to walk home. No one else shared the boy’s nonchalance; everything was upended. I walked over the pedestrian bridge that crosses the divided highway in my neighborhood. The storm drains below were clearly blocked, as there were several inches of water on the road. Cars flew by at their normal pace anyway, sending sheets of water up on either side. I passed an upscale hotel next, that had  large overhand outside their front door. Tourists from the Gulf stood agape, watching the rain fall. I turned up the sloping alley to the souq where I live and saw shopkeepers enthusiastically cooperating to unstop the drain at the bottom. The coffee shop owner at the top of the alley was rolling up the piece of fabric that had shaded his outdoor seating from the sun all summer. Two boys ran through the rain, screeching in delight.

I turned into the hotel where I stayed when I first arrived, where my Arabic tutor gives classes, and where I still have many friends. The younger staff members were running across the courtyard, squeegie-ing the rain towards the drains in the courtyard and pushing back the leaves that were falling from the trailing vines under the strength of the downpour. Gushes of water came intermittently as pooled water was pushed off the sunshade on the roof.

An older man who usually works behind the desk stood beside me watching. “It hasn’t rained in the summer in twenty years. Sure, it rains sometimes in the winter, but almost never in the summer.”

‘Alaa came over, taking a break from his squeegie. “Have you ever seen rain in the summer?” I asked. He is in his early twenties.

“Yeah once,” he answered. “I was in Germany.”

The rain let up after half an hour or so, and life began to return to normal. Drains were cleaned the cafes filled up quickly as people took advantage of the cool air that the rain had brought. The next morning at university, our teacher could talk of nothing else for the first half hour of class.

Sunday afternoon, again the sky began to darken. I was at the hotel again. “No way will it happen two days in a row,” was the general consensus, but Hussam, by Arabic tutor said, “Why not?” The thunder came again, and again. Finally the owner sprang from the office into the courtyard and called out, “OK, let’s go!”

We all sprang into action, moving the cushions on the chairs under the roof. When we were done, I ran home. My door was blocked by a puddle so I stood in my landlord’s shop, where he sells and repairs mobile phones. “It hasn’t rained in the summer in twenty years, and now it rains two days in a row. And I’ve never heard thunder before. Ever.” A minute later he pointed to the car parked across the street, “Hail! We’ve never had hail before.”

Two days in a row, and now thunder and hail. What would be next?

This afternoon, briefly, it rained again.

Categories: Middle East, Summer 2008
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As one walks through the streets of Damascus, there isn’t a whole lot of English around, except when websites or phone numbers are involved. One place where you do see more English than Arabic, however, is on t-shirts. Some simply sport designer’s names or non sequitors that are meant to be stylish, but a few are really quite amusing. It also quickly becomes clear that the vast majority of people have no idea what their shirts say. For example:

• University of Massachusetts (the wearer spoke not a word of English and had never been to America–I asked)
• The Man. The Legend. (with accompanying arrows pointing up and down–the wearer was walking next to his wife, who wore a niqab)
• My boyfriend is out of town (on a twelve-year-old girl walking arm-in-arm with her veiled mother)
• Yeshiva University Alumni Baseball

Categories: Middle East, Summer 2008
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One of the mildly annoying bits about life in Damascus has been the lack of an oven in my apartment. This seems to be fairly par for the course around here–I haven’t seen too many apartments that do have them. Instead, for cooking, I have only a sort of camping stove arrangement–a propane tank connected to a little box with two burners that you have to light with a match or a lighter (singing the hair on one’s hand in the process). I’ve got a frying pan, a low wide saucepan, and a couple of pans suitable for boiling rice or pasta. Food so far has consisted mainly of sauteed vegetables with either rice or pasta, but I’m now looking for more variety. Any suggestions? Please leave them as comments.

Categories: Middle East, Summer 2008
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Most men you see on the street wear Western clothes: usually long pants and a collared shirt or maybe a t-shirt, often incongruously adorned with English writing. Almost all women cover their heads, although there is a wide range of clothing, from the flowing and shapeless to the stylish and snug-fitting. Young children wear shorts and t-shirts, while older men will often wear a jalabiyya and sandals. On Fridays, younger men will often also wear a jalabiyya.

I walked through Souk al-Hamidiyya yesterday (one of the great markets in the Old City). It was maybe an hour after Friday prayers had let out and the street was bustling with people. One family caught my eye. The father was wearing a spotless white jalabiyya and he was walking through the souk with four sons in tow. The three younger ones were probably all under the age of ten and wore shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers. The whole world was their playground. Two of them were enjoying small ice cream cones. The oldest son, however, wore a white jalabiyya like his father. He was also eating an ice cream cone, but despite the very grown-up attention he was paying it, his jalabiyya had strawberry ice cream all down the front.

Categories: Middle East, Summer 2008
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I found a movie theater today–I had been looking for one to go to as an enjoyable way to try to get Arabic listening practice. I finally found one that my guidebook talks about and went inside to see what was playing.

The ticket booth was unoccupied by a man in a starched shirt and black bowtie was was washing the ice cream scoops at the concession stand. I went over and asked him if there was a schedule.

“Oh, no, there is no schedule,” he said.

“Well, then how do you know what movies are playing?”

“People call. We only get new movies every two weeks.”

“I see. Which movies do you have this week?”

He pointed to two movie posters in the center of the lobby. “They are Arab movies. Sometimes we get American ones too.” Movie posters in movie theaters in the US don’t usually have any relation to what is playing, so I had completely ignored them. I went over and studied them. There were quite clearly two theaters and two posters–one appeared to involved explosions and scantily-clad (by Arab standards) women, and the other seemed to be a romantic comedy. There was very little in the way of explanation of the plot–just actor’s names and the title. They both looked fairly interesting–at the very least as cultural experiences. Idecided I would be happy to see either one–it would probably depend on who I could convince to go with me.

I walked back over to the concessionaire. “Ok, but how do you know what time the movies are?”

“They are always at 3:30, 6:30, and 9:30.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

What a simple concept. So simple I could hardly grasp it at first. The times stay the same, the movies change every two weeks. If you want to know what the new movies are, you walk to the theater and look at the posters. If you don’t want to walk that far, you call and ask. And you can have ice cream or popcorn served to you by a guy in a starched shirt and bow tie.

Sometimes I think America has it all wrong.

Categories: Middle East, Summer 2008
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“Thank you for calling the anit-money laundering and OFAC hotline….”

Wow. Not a good way to start a phone call with your bank.

“…Please wait for the next–hi, how can I help you?”

Wow. They mean business. No waiting, no phone menu, no pushing buttons. “Uh, hi. I’m traveling in Syria and my ATM card has stopped working. The ATM card people said I needed to talk to you.”

“Ah yes. Syria, along with Cuba, Sudan, Iran, Burma, and the Palestinian Authority, is an OFAC country. Federal law prohibits financial dealings with the government. How long are you going to be in Syria?”

“Until early September.”

“Oh. Ok, well then what I need is a letter or a fax from you stating that your bank account is for personal use and that you’re not doing business with the Syrian government. The fax machine is right here, I’ll give you a call to let you know when I’ve received it.”

So I was off to find a shop with a fax machine that was open at ten o’clock at night in Damascus. I eventually found one and sent off the letter. I got a call the next day saying I would have my account back on Thursday.

That taken care of, I went off to learn about OFAC. Turns out they are part of the US Treasury Department and they manage who Americans can and cannot do business with. It turns out that not only is it a felony to do business with the Syrian government, I could also have gotten into big trouble if I had chosen the wrong cell phone company (the government-owned one) to buy my SIM card from.

So this is what sanctions are.

Categories: Middle East, Summer 2008
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“Hello, I would like that small black watch in the window from the company ‘Aqua.’”

The shopkeeper fetched the watch and held it out for me to try on.

“I’ve never heard of this company, ‘Aqua,’ are they a good company?”

“Oh yes, they are a very good company.” Of course they were. What else was he going to say?

A woman who was browsing a case in the shop piped up. “Is it a Chinese company?”

I turned over the watch and read the back. “Yes it’s Chinese.”

The shopkeeper muttered under his breath, “The whole world is Chinese.”

Categories: Middle East, Summer 2008
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Normally, I try to ignore all the bare hands that touch my food around here. Everyone does it, and there aren’t Syrians getting sick by the dozen. Also, can it really be that different than what goes on in restaurants back home? I also try to ignore the amount of food that sits out at room temperature. I eat mostly fruits and vegetables here anyway, and when I do eat food that will spoil, I try to go places that do a brisk business, so that the food is fresh. Sometimes, though this doesn’t work out, like on Saturday, when I got very sick.

“What did you eat?” my roommate asked the next day.

“Helawiya nablusiya.” Literally Nablus dessert, after the Palestinian city where it supposedly originates.

“What’s that?”

“They sell it at that sweet shop right below my bedroom window. I can smell it all day and all night. It’s a base of soft melted cheese with a spiced sponge cake over it, drenched in sugar syrup. They keep it out on the front counter and sell squares of it all day.”

“Yeah, it sounds like a lot of things could have gone wrong there.”

“Yeah, but it was really good.”

Categories: Middle East, Summer 2008
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“Excuse me.”

Three friends and I were walking down a residential street, coming home after an hour of pool and ping pong at a hall whose main patrons seemed to be twelve-year-olds who were far too skilled at these games for their own good, and the bolder of whom smoked cigarettes–slowly and ostentatiously. An elderly man in a white jalabiyya stood before us, leaning on his cane. We stopped.

“I want to walk to the library. It is not far. But I cannot walk there.” He pointed to the street corner, his arm trembling slightly.

“Of course. No problem.” My friend John held out his arm and the man gladly took it. “What is your name?”

There was a long pause, as if the elderly man was searching his brain as if casting about for a lost keyring or pair of eyeglasses.

“My name…is Yahya.” Yahya is the Arabic name for John the Baptist.

“You speak excellent English. Where did you learn?” John asked. He was right. There is one sort of English that many shopkeepers have picked up, often single words or phrases useful to their trade, and often pronounced with a heavy Arabic accent and lots of gestures to shore up an unsure grasp of the language. Yahya did not speak like this at all. He spoke in complete sentences, and his accent, while a bit rusty, was not bad. There are also some Syrians who have learned English at university, but they are on the whole young and well-to-do….

“I studied in London,” Yahya said.

“That must have been a long time ago…when were you there?” John is from Reading, just west of London.

“I don’t remember.”

I couldn’t help smiling. Something about the very straightforward, honest answer was refreshing. Then Yahya had a thought.

“It was before 1950. I went to university in Paris in 1950.” Syria was only granted full independence in 1946. This man was older than the country he lives in. “I was an engineer. I am retired now.”

By then we had come to the corner store. “I want to buy something. Please wait.” He went inside and greeted the shopkeeper at length, as is obligatory in Arabic. John encouraged us to go on and he would catch up–progress had been slow.

John caught up to us back at my apartment. Yahya had in fact only wanted to go to the store. Perhaps he had forgotten the word for store and so used library instead. He turned out to be 76 years old, meaning he had gone to university in Paris at the age of 18, and London before that, and then he had returned to Syria. Most Syrians who are able to go to Paris or London today don’t come back.

Categories: Middle East, Summer 2008
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It does not rain in Damascus in the summer. I haven’t seen rain since I left Massachusetts and I probably won’t see it again until I return. There are also very few clouds in the sky, but the winds blow, usually in the evening as the sun is going down. There skies are not clear, though. The wind kicks up dust from the arid planes around the city and it blows down the streets. Shopkeepers are constantly sprinkling the sidewalks in front of their shops with precious water and everything is covered with a thin film of dust. In grocery stores, bottles are wiped with a cloth as they are handed to you, and anything in my apartment that gets moved less than daily quickly needs dusting.

Living in Massachusetts I read about ancient cities that were taken over by the desert, buried, built on top of, disappeared. I could never understand it. The woods behind my house used to be farm land. Two hundred, three hundred years and the foundation holes are still mostly visible from the farmhouses. In one foundation there’s even still a hearth standing.

Now that I live in Damascus, it’s easy to see how a city could be buried. If everyone left what my textbooks tell me is the undisputed oldest continuously-inhabited city on Earth, no longer sweeping and dusting and sprinkling, the city would easily be gone in a matter of years.

Categories: Middle East, Summer 2008, Uncategorized
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